by Huss, JA
“I didn’t have anything to do with that! Don’t you get it? I’m just following orders!”
“Then you’re worse.” We all turn to find Isabella standing a few feet off with her arms crossed over her chest and a deep frown. “Or at the very least you’re just like them. Just like your father. Just like mine. You knew the second challenge was a trade. If the boys aren’t happy”—she throws up her arms—“then they get to trade us. Find a better, more compliant girl. You could’ve at least warned Michael so he could’ve brought enough money to keep his girlfriend from being sold to the devil.”
“You knew too, Isabella. And so did you.” I point to Valentina and Selina. “We all knew. So any one of you could’ve warned him too. But we didn’t. Because we…”
“You didn’t because you all underestimated me.” Now we turn to Dante. “You’re no King, Cooper. I don’t even know why you bother pretending. You don’t even want to be here. You should be the one to go home.” He looks at us. All of us. And even though I knew he was evil from the very start, he’s not even trying to hide it now. He takes a step forward towards me. Leans in a little, like we’re about to share a secret. “And make no mistake. I hold grudges, Cooper Valcourt. You think you put one over on me when you sent Cadee to my house with bodyguards? You didn’t. I was planning the minute I saw your little girlfriend had joined the party. I planned this, Cooper. And make no mistake, my game is far from over.”
He turns, his gaze wandering over the crowd until it lands on Sophie. “Come on, Sophie. We’re gonna have some fun together today, girl. Where’s that Fugling?” He looks over his shoulder at me. And I swear to God, I think I see a glint of red in his eyes when he smiles with satisfaction. Like he really is the devil. “My father told the Chairman all about how Cadee Hunter was shirking her duties and the staff was pissed. He’s going to take it all away if she doesn’t spend the next six weeks doing exactly what she’s told.” He turns back to Sophie. “I’m gonna go find the Fugling. You just concentrate on putting your bikini on for me.”
“I don’t have a bikini!” Sophie objects.
“Oh, you do now, Sophie. I brought one especially for you.”
Fuck. I run my fingers through my hair and spin around, seeking out Lars. He’s off to the side now, his arms folded across his chest. Don’t look at me, that’s what he’s saying. Your deal, dude.
I turn back to Dante. But he’s gone. Already heading towards the Glass House to presumably start making Cadee’s life miserable too.
“OK,” Ax says. “That’s enough. No one is getting hurt on our watch, you got it?” He’s looking at Sophie. “If I need to break into his house every night to make sure you’re safe, I will.”
Sophie is crying in a weird way. Not sobbing. Tears, for sure. Her face is wet and she’s breathing fast and heavy, but no noise is coming out of her mouth. She nods at him and wipes her face with the back of her hand. “OK.”
“Yeah?” Ax asks. “You’re good? Just… put on the bathing suit, Sophie. Then do what he says. Only say no if he hits a hard line.”
She hiccups a little. Probably imagining all the various hard lines she has.
“OK, then. Go change. He has to hang out here every day from nine to five, Sophie. You’re gonna be fine. I promise.” Then he looks at Michael. “It’s only two weeks. Then… we buy her back. All of us, if necessary. He’s doing this to divide us. We’re not going to let him do that.”
Michael looks over at Sophie, then back at Ax. “We’ll buy her back?”
“No matter what it takes,” I tell Michael, thankful that Ax is here standing in for Lars as the voice of reason. Because Lars sure as fuck isn’t doing anything.
Michael nods, placated for now. The idea that we can buy her back is a good one. He walks off after Sophie, talking softly to her as they go.
“Well, this is a fucking shit show,” Isabella says.
“Yeah, thanks for your support, by the way. I really don’t appreciate you fanning the fucking flames, Isabella.”
She looks at me with… what? What is that look? It’s not hate. It’s not loathing.
It’s… disappointment. I recognize it. My father shoots me that same look all the time.
“I’m doing my best, Isabella. We will protect her.”
She just…stares at me. Finally, Selina and Valentina step in and lead her away, talking about bathing suits and a nice day at the pool.
It’s not a nice day at the pool. Or a nice week, for that matter. It’s seven straight days of Dante humiliating Cadee by making her massage his feet while he gets a hard-on and doesn’t even try to hide it. Or making her fan him with a leafy branch she had to hunt down in the woods. He made her go back six times before he was satisfied. Then she had to stand in the hot sun for hours, waving that useless branch like a fan.
On day three it rained and he made Cadee and Sophie mud-wrestle in their bathing suits. I thought Michael was going to lose it after Dante got the staff to come out and place bets.
I think Ivan and Ax both enjoyed that day a little too much. And honestly, even though Cadee and Sophie were muddy, they managed to have fun and no one got hurt.
In fact, everything was just childish things like that until this morning.
Day eight.
Cadee and I spent the nights together and we didn’t talk about Dante at all. But it was clear she was too worried to think about our new relationship status. And tired, too. Dante just refused to let up on her for a moment during the day.
Ax wasn’t staying in the house because he was stalking around Dante’s mansion, trying to keep an eye on Sophie. He gave her a little panic button device, and she pushed the first night. Enter Ax, via a window, and then the sheriff was called and that was the end of Ax’s inside access.
I had to call my father on day two. In fact, we had a conference call with the Legosis and the Bettingtons. Lars did all the talking because I was too pissed to speak.
After about two hours of Mr. Legosi bitching about how much money his family has donated to “the cause” and the fact that Sophie was taking home in excess of two hundred thousand dollars at this point, we all agreed she could keep the panic button. But if she pushed it without good reason, she would forfeit her right to be traded again at the end of the challenge, and Dante would get another two weeks with her for free.
She sucked it up after that.
But she’s not happy. At all.
And neither is Michael.
As far as Ax goes, he was told to stay away from Dante or the next time his father would step in and take care of things, i.e. Ax will probably go to jail and be made an example of. Which would probably be fine with Ax, except his father is known for coming up with very creative punishments.
Ax sucked it up too.
Isabella has been drunk every single day and I’m tired of her shit. Even Selina and Valentina are tired of her shit. But Isabella is… weak. That’s the best word to describe her. And pushing her does no good. She doesn’t rise to the occasion, she shuts down. She’s a lot more like Sophie than anyone wants to admit.
So day eight.
I’m sitting at the pool fully clothed because the idea of sitting at the pool lost its novelty about five days ago. It’s hot as fuck, everyone hates me, including the fucking servers, because Lacy Pendleton made an appearance two hours ago throwing a fit about how Cadee stole her scholarship and demanding that I find a place for her.
I have no place for her. I’m not even in charge here and everyone knows it. I’m a fucking babysitter. So I told her to tell her father to call my father and they would work it out.
Lars escorted her home and when they turned to leave, I caught Victor English snickering like an asshole near the back of the Glass House where the servers hang out during their breaks.
I’m ninety-nine percent sure he was behind Lacy’s sudden appearance.
Then Dante made a rule that Cadee couldn’t walk all day. She had to crawl everywhere.
Fine. He wants
to be a dick? That’s his prerogative.
So I go over to Cadee to remind her that she’s here by choice—and yeah. That was not what she wanted to hear.
Every single girl ganged up on me and now… I’m the dick here. Not Dante.
Could it get any worse?
Yes, it can always get worse.
Because I get a cryptic message from my father’s assistant, Laurie, telling me she needs to talk to me—in person, mind you. All the way across the fucking lake—and this meeting needs to happen today at three PM.
Cadee was pissed about that too, because she wanted me to wait until five when she could leave the rush, and come with me to see if her cottage was OK because one of the other servers told her this morning that Victor was living there. So even though I am perfectly capable of checking in on her cottage myself, she’s mad at me because I won’t wait.
I can’t wait because Laurie was only stopping in for a day to handle some things for my father and she needs to leave campus by three-thirty so she can catch a plane to wherever the fuck she’s spending the rest of the summer.
I wish that were it, but it’s not.
Lars is definitely pissed at me about something. What this something is, I’m not quite sure, because he won’t talk to me. But it’s probably about Cadee.
I sigh. Because I’m being killed slowly by a thousand papercuts and this fucking summer is only half over.
But it’s two-thirty now and I need to leave to make the appointment with Laurie, so I force myself to get up and wander over to Ax. “Please,” I say to him. “Please do not let anything else happen today while I’m gone. Can you do that for me?”
“Sure.” He doesn’t even look up at me. He’s playing cards with Elexa and Ivan, who, to everyone’s surprise, seem to have hit it off because they show up every morning wearing smiles declaring themselves to be the happiest couple alive.
What the hell is happening? is now my new favorite phrase.
I would like to kiss Cadee goodbye before I take off and tell her I’ll see her at home tonight, but she’s currently crawling over to Dante’s feet, getting ready to massage them, and even dumbfuck me knows how to read a room every once in a while.
So I just leave.
Thirty-seven minutes later—the boat ran out of gas seventy feet from the High Court Marina and I had to coast in. I’m probably being written a ticket right now by security for illegally parking my boat. I’m also wet, didn’t quite make it to the dock—I almost run Laurie over as she’s leaving the admin building.
I flash back to three weeks ago—how the fuck has it only been three weeks?—when this very same scenario played out with Mona and Cadee, and then say, “Where are you going?”
“Walk with me, Cooper. I can’t be late. I’m not missing my vacation. My mother had surgery two weeks ago and I had to spend my entire summer so far listening to her tell me how worthless I am. I need this vacation.”
I put my hands up in surrender. “I’m cool walking and talking.”
“So I got a phone call this morning. Apparently, they’ve been calling for two weeks but no one has been answering. Do they not understand this is a school and we have lives in the summer, Cooper? Lives that involve vacation?”
“Who?” Jesus Christ. I don’t think I can do people today.
“Some self-storage place out on Highway 54 near Poplar Creek.”
“OK. Is this supposed to mean something to me?”
“Yes, it is. Because they were looking for your father.”
“Can you get to the point, please?”
“They’re calling because he paid in full for one year’s worth of storage, but the facility has been sold, someone’s going to turn it into a 7-11, and they need everyone to clear their crap out by next week.”
I sigh. I don’t think I can do life today. “So what? I’m supposed to clear this shit out?”
“I guess so. They need you to come up there today to sign some papers.”
“That’s like an hour and a half away. Does it have to be today?”
“Today.”
“This doesn’t make sense.”
We’re in the staff parking lot now and Laurie is busy click-click-clicking her key fob to unlock her car. “Well, Cooper, I just wanted to let you know.” She pauses. And it’s only now that I realize she’s carrying a box of stuff because she’s hiking it up on her hip to pull the car door open.
A box of stuff like… “Did you quit?”
She takes in a long breath, lets it out, and smiles at me. She sets her box down in the back seat, and then extends her hand. “Goodbye, Cooper. I always did like you. But…” She shakes her head. “I think I’ve overstayed my welcome. Here’s the key to the storage unit. And just in case you decide that self-storage unit can wait and my excuse to get you up there wasn’t enough, do not wait, Cooper. You’re gonna find something very interesting in that unit.”
“What?”
She gets in her car, starts it up, waves her fingers at me through the window, and drives away. Leaving High Court College forever, apparently.
Then my phone buzzes a text.
Cadee: Well?
Me: Well, what?
Cadee: Is that jerkface fuck Victor living in my cottage?
Me: Hold, please.
I turn towards the prep side of campus, leave the college side by way of one of the wall gates, and then walk all the way down to the opposite end of campus, go into the freaking woods, stop in front of Cadee’s cabin to peek in the windows, and decide not to answer her back.
Because yes. That jerkface fuck Victor is living in her cottage.
I turn my phone off so I can have time to go back home, find keys to the fully-restored 1954 Ford pickup in my father’s small-but-mighty classic car collection, and go up to Poplar Creek Self-Storage to see what fresh hell awaits me behind a dented-up metal garage door.
Poplar Creek isn’t really a town. It’s an intersection you have to pass in order to get to Poplar Lake. And Poplar Lake is pretty much just like Monrovian Lake, except it’s not surrounded by mansions and a private school. Just cabins. Ordinary, everyday, family-friendly vacation cabins.
The intersection consists of a gas station mini-mart, a bait and tackle shop, a pizza place, and a Tastee Freez. The sign for the self-storage facility has been living on a billboard over the gas station for decades. It looks more like a prop or a thing forgotten than an actual advertisement for a business. A landmark.
I’m pretty sure no one who drives past that sign ever seriously considered it an option for storing junk.
Except my father, apparently.
It takes a minute to get past the front gate—five, actually. I don’t have the code to get in, Laurie didn’t give me that. But once I say the name Valcourt, the woman on the other side of the crackling speaker decides to buzz me through.
The key did come with a number on it, so I find the building, go inside, and stand in front of the metal roll-up door, unsure if I should be doing this.
Whatever secrets are in there, they don’t belong to me. They belong to my father. And I’m not sure I want his secrets.
I pace up and down the hallway for a while, trying to decide what I should do.
Walk away?
Or face whatever truth is inside?
I have never pretended to be something I’m not. I have never called myself smart, or motivated, or polite. In fact, my father’s litany of complaints about me—Cooper, you are an inconsiderate little prick who thinks that this good life you’ve been provided is a right instead of a privilege. You are also greedy, stupid, lazy, and will never amount to anything—is all pretty much dead on.
I am all those things.
So fine. I deserve his litany of insults. I’ve earned them.
But I’m not a coward. At least I haven’t been up until now. I know that whatever’s going on in the upper levels of Fang and Feather is bad. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out. That’s why Lars, Ax and I are trying to walk awa
y.
Trying, Cooper? There is no trying. Either you walk away or you don’t. Enough with the excuses. Because that’s what they are.
I have one more year of college and then I can walk away. I’ve been saying something along those lines since I found Cadee Hunter in a crying heap up in her Alumni Inn attic bedroom by accident three and a half years ago.
The key is sliding into the lock on the door before I even realize I’ve made a decision. I toss the lock on the ground, roll up the door, and stare at the room filled with neatly labeled boxes.
Cadee’s name is on one of the boxes in front, but hers is not the only name on a box in this storage unit.
There are dozens of them and even though I should not be able to find the connection between them so easily, it’s there and it’s easy.
I don’t need to open them up and see what’s inside.
I know.
Because I am invested in this cover-up.
I am, in fact, an accomplice.
It takes me about an hour to transfer the boxes to the back of the truck, and then another couple hours to drive them to a place far enough away to feel safe when I drop them off in another storage unit. Then three more hours to get back to High Court.
It’s after midnight when I get home and by the time I close the door to the garage and walk down the long hallway towards the stairs, I know she’s not there. I don’t need to check her bedroom, but I do anyway.
It’s empty.
I pull out my phone to call her and remember that I turned it off this afternoon after I checked on her cottage.
Seven messages from Cadee ranging in anger level.
But the only one that matters is the last one.
I’m with Lars.
CHAPTER THIRTY - CADEE
Cooper didn’t call, or text, or even show up at Lars’ house in the morning to walk to the Glass House with us. And this walk in the woods with Lars is just as quiet as last night.